I think a huge part of our problem is too many similar types.

Moloney, jones, Mckenzie,Magner.

Not enough runners who can spread quick with a bit of pace

Not enough players with a heart either...

We lack stars. Who was our last general star that opposition teams were envious of us having? Neitz?

Mckenzie will struggle to keep his spot. Moloney had a shocker, Jones was ok and Magner was good. Mckenzie is a bit slow and a shame as he seems to have the best hands of the lot.

We have a pathetic midfield. There is no talent there. Moloney is a dud I hate to say it. He won a b&f but who was going to beat him? Jones has heart but not much else. You're right they are all the same. Not saying we must produce a Jude (would be nice) but we need a player that has good hand skills and can read the play well. At the moment we have neither

I was dissapointed with Jamar today as well, gave the Brissie mids an armchair ride.

Also think its time to remove Jones , Mckenzie and Moloney from there and throw in Gysberts, Tapscott and Grimes.

Its not good enough these days just to be hard at it, gotta have some skill.

Unfortunately only one team turned up today to play football

Can our players run or do they not want to run? It sure beats me

  On 31/03/2012 at 06:27, DeeZee said:

I was dissapointed with Jamar today as well, gave the Brissie mids an armchair ride.

Also think its time to remove Jones , Mckenzie and Moloney from there and throw in Gysberts, Tapscott and Grimes.

Its not good enough these days just to be hard at it, gotta have some skill.

Jamar was terrible. When he did get a hitout all he wanted to do was drop it at his feet in the middle of a pack....sheesh

  On 31/03/2012 at 06:14, DeeZee said:

I think a huge part of our problem is too many similar types.

Moloney, jones, Mckenzie,Magner.

Not enough runners who can spread quick with a bit of pace

Add Bail, Bartram, Joel Mac to that list of similar types who are not quick and have significant flaws. Trengove also not quick.

And also similar are our forward line types. Not one who can keep the ball in, but the talls are Clark, Watts, Howe, Petterd, Martin.... and they all get in eachother's way.

  On 31/03/2012 at 06:14, DeeZee said:

I think a huge part of our problem is too many similar types.

Moloney, jones, Mckenzie,Magner.

Not enough runners who can spread quick with a bit of pace

We got smashed in the clearances. We need to win the footy in close first.

  On 31/03/2012 at 06:23, melbournefc18 said:

We have a pathetic midfield. There is no talent there. Moloney is a dud I hate to say it. He won a b&f but who was going to beat him? Jones has heart but not much else. You're right they are all the same. Not saying we must produce a Jude (would be nice) but we need a player that has good hand skills and can read the play well. At the moment we have neither

I have been a very long term believer in Moloney, but it is getting harder to maintain that belief. I haven't seen him play a decent game against a decent opposition midfield for a very long time. Jones IMO still produces and does a lot of unseen in and under positives. McKenzie has a great pair of hands, guts and determination, and today kicked more often and better than I have ever seen him do before. Tapscott had better get back soon. Did Gys play at Casey today or is he again injured? Sylvia?

But yes, our midfield just isn't up to scratch.

And even when Jamar wins the hit out we just do not get enough clearances - why should he work his butt off when he gets such poor support at ground level??

This lot doesn't spread well, that is true. I actually think their biggest problem is that all of the above a pretty poor defensively with the possible exception of McKenzie who looked short of a gallop to me. Magner was pretty good 1st up but I thought his setup at dead ball situations was awful. We were getting smashed and he still wouldn't defend. Kicking aside it is his biggest weakness in the games I've seen so far.

When Moloney isnt getting the pill he is just plain terrible as he is possibly the worst defensive mid since Trapper.

It is beyond me that at this day in age, guys like Mckenzie can still get a game.

Sure, he has the ability to win an in and under ball and extract it by hand as well as lay a strong tackle. But we all know if you cant kick, you cant play. His inability to hit a target by foot and his hesitation to kick the sherrin is simply not good enough - not to mention his lack of pace.

You may all say, at least he has a dip and put his body on the line. But who gives a [censored] ! You don't build a good team around guys who can't hurt the opposition with their disposal.

It's time to get some real athletes into the middle, rather than just hard nosed midfielders who earn their coin jumping under a pack. A starting point would be putting Grimes in there.

This is just a starting point...I don't want to even begin talking about this so called 'complex game plan'.

  On 31/03/2012 at 06:27, DeeZee said:

I was dissapointed with Jamar today as well, gave the Brissie mids an armchair ride.

Also think its time to remove Jones , Mckenzie and Moloney from there and throw in Gysberts, Tapscott and Grimes.

Its not good enough these days just to be hard at it, gotta have some skill.

If Grimes's body can hack it, he should definitely be playing there. I sense they're a little worried about him breaking down, hence him playing back.

Gysberts and Tapscott should certainly join him. Gysberts is too slight though, but arguably our most promising young midfielder (along with Trenners). Tapscott will bring much need kicking penetration. Magner certainly deserves his spot. I really like what I saw today and through the NAB cup.

The major void seems to be speed from the stoppages.

So for the inside mids, I'd be looking at:

Gysberts, Tapscott, Magner, Grimes and probably Couch as extractors. I reckon McKenzie is also worth a game. Needs to improve his kicking, but so does just about every player.

The outside, pacey mids would have to come from:

Blease, Watts (although he showed he could extract it as well today and certainly has the speed) and potentially even Dan Nicholson.

So it's pace and strength we're desperately lacking (let's start there at least). We need pacey crumbers in the forward half too. Don't have them. Stick them under Clark's nose. LJ will also hopefully make a huge difference when he comes back.

Apologises, rambled a bit there.

James Magner, one of the VFL's best midfielders from last year proved today to be our best midfielder by a clear margin. What a joke. Trengove for all his positives doesn't seem a real weapon in close yet. Maybe it's still early days, but maybe he's a better player in a Bartel like role floating from half forward to wing, to the guts. I'd love to see him set a few tagging jobs for his education.

Sylvia isn't an AFL midfielder, he's an in and out type as well. McKenzie (despite being short a run today) and Jones are reasonable off the bench midfield depth, a bit like Curnow and Robinson at Carlton. Really if you follow the diagram below I think we need about 4 extra midfielders to fit the missing spots, plus depth after that. Today those 4 spots were filled by Moloney, Tynan, Watts and Green/Blease. That really isn't going to cut it. Sylvia takes the half forward flank spot and maybe in time Tynan can make it as a back flank/rotating wingman. But really we need 2 class ball winning midfielders to make Moloney, McKenzie, Jones, Bate, Magner, Gysberts and Couch compete for a couple of depth spots. In the mean time I expect we'll be shuffling these guys round a bit with no real success. Their inability to play other positions does hurt them. But their inability to actually get on top of the clearance chart hurts the most.

Other plays on our list can form part of the rotations like Tapscott, Petterd maybe even Morton and who knows what we'll get form Taggert, but at the end of the day I think we'll have to go back to the draft and try and find the top end quality. It's so sad that even before round 1 this year I was thinking this would happen and hope we could get our hands on Viney and another class mid from the draft.

C: Trengove xxxxx xxxxxx

Foll: Ruck Magner xxxxxx

HF: Bail/Petterd CHF xxxxx/Sylvia/Tapscott

Int: McKenzie Jones

I did like Jones's first half. Good hands in close and his kicking has improved.

Besides Magner, he had no help all day. The Black/Rich combo alone was just too much.